So I've always wondered about these, they were very popular about 5-10 yrs ago and have been extensively used by my favorite artist.

But, here's the thing, I've never been convinced that they were used for much more than live "sample" players, ie. wack in a sound from your finished track and pretend to play it live, you know what I mean?

So I guess what gets me wondering is, would it be worth it getting one of these as a studio keyboard? What are the sounds like? Is it better as a sampler and if so, would it be worth it given what NI's Kontakt can do these days?

Tritons are good S+S romplers, with decent effects and synthesis features. Ok controllers, good workstations. I wouldn't pay too much for one right now- say, more than %800AUD, because for a little more you can likely get a used M3 instead.

The Triton presets were used a lot. Users in the hip-hop world were not much interested in designing their own sounds as much as finding sounds ready to go.

Yes, the sampling was popular for "flying in" audio parts and for that you don't need much in the way of features. It was used like an MPC with keys instead of pads. Kontakt is total overkill for that application.

I listened to Hatfield and the North at Rainbow. They were very wonderful and they made my heart a prisoner.

I have a running Triton right next to me as I type this. I bought it new back then. There are a lot of good presets in this solid box, but if you want to get a good piano sound, don't expect the Triton to do this right... in other words the Triton piano is very dull and artificial. I love its strings, mallet and pads, organs are good as well.

And have I mentioned yet it's solid as a rock? I gigged with it, had a half empty bottle of beer fall on it and it still works fine - apart of some sticky keys now Wouldn't sell it because I made lots of tracks with its sequencer, which is quite fun btw.

I had a Karma for a while that had a Triton ROM engine and sampleset - ime I liked it's synth-brass, strings and choirs quite a bit, the basses and synth sounds so-so, but found the pianos and drums to be lacking. Overall it's kinda plastick-y in the typical Korg 90's way. The delay/reverb FX sound nice enough.they are ALL OVER 60-70% of the low-budget hip-hop records made ~'99-'05.

have you had a Kurzweil k2xx? those are better all-around imho, especially for studio work. Or a JD990, which is my personal go-to ROMpler.But the Korgs are fine, just that the sounds dated quickly imo.

Yeah, there's one cheap on the bay at the moment so I was just contemplating having it as a spare board, because I don't really have the space to have it setup permanently. I think though I'm just looking for confirmation that I could get by with something like Kontakt (I actually have a Triton sample library I bought from eBay too).

Speaking of Kurzweil, there's a really interesting interview in one of the recent Readers Digests with Ray Kurzweil, who is also a "Futureist", it said he only eats Tofu, vegetables and has cut out all sugar from his diet in order to live as long as possible to achieve his goals with futuristic technology (an interesting fact I thought)

Hybrid88 wrote:At the risk of a stupid question, would you say the sounds are still good/relevant for current dance music?

I don't think the sounds are particularly great for dance, but probably better for some styles over another, esp. if you were to get into using the very capable effects engine with its sampler.

I think for dance music the most useful feature of the Triton are the dual arps which are brilliant fun, so I'd still say the Triton is a decent synth for dance (mind you, I still think the M1 is a decent synth for dance music, so you might want to ignore me completely)...

Don't forget that it can be installed with the Moss board. I really like the one in my Karma. It's a deep and great sounding synth, that will benefit the large Triton touch screen. It can be combined with the HI engine in the combi mode. Also there's a Triton Karma software.